Come out, both of you. No harm is to come to you here.

Seth looked at Andrew. Both of their eyes were wide, both of their hearts pounding in their ears. Seth mouthed one word. “Run.”

They were up through the brambles in a flash, clothing ripping on thorns as they turned and sprinted through the trees as hard as they could. A feminine voice echoed behind them, saying words Seth couldn’t understand. He looked back to see Andrew frozen mid-stride, arms pumped but unmoving. Seth heard a second phrase shouted and he froze as well, extended forward on one foot, some force holding him balanced in the air, the paralyzation bringing back the memory of that altar Nicole had placed him on.

Seth struggled within his mind, but to no avail.

They began to move.

The same force that held them, lifted them up and back through the trees, into the clearing, and dumped them on the ground in front of the blue-white flame. The hold released on their limbs and both pushed to their feet, immediately going back-to-back. Seth stared down the grizzly and his friends, Andrew stared down the women.

No need to fight, came the voice in their heads.

“Yes,” said the woman who had been speaking. “No blood can be spilled on sacred ground.”

“Really not gonna trust that,” growled Seth, his fists up like they might do something in a fight with a grizzly. “I’ve been on sacred ground before, and there was a lot of blood spilled there.” He could feel the void within him pulsing, hungry for battle.

“Yeah,” said Andrew. “What he said.”

Seth felt that wasp-sting in his temple again, and he winced as light blazed from the blue-white flame and blinded him for half a second.

He is the one, came the voice. Kill the other.

Seth couldn’t explain it, but he felt deeply murderous intent from the women behind him. “Like hell,” he growled, arm going back as he shoved Andrew down the path, planting himself in front of the leader of the women. Her arm was outstretched, her fingertips glowing with flame, and he could now see under her hood. Olive skin, green eyes. He’d seen her before, in his dream. Seth didn’t give a damn.

His augment traced through the air with every bit of speed and strength his hips could throw behind it.

A sound like a baseball bat going through a watermelon filled the clearing as Seth’s metal shin caved in the woman’s skull. She dropped to the ground, dead before impact. You did this, the voice from the dream echoed in his mind. Damn right, he did. The void drank the violence.

“Run!” Shouted Seth. Andrew bolted down the path, one of the women raising a hand as he did. She opened her mouth to speak, but Seth’s took a leap and twisted his body mid-air, punch streaking out with his full bodyweight behind it. He could feel jaw unhinging from joint as his knuckles impacted delicate skin and bone. The woman fell unconscious. Andrew was gone from sight as Seth put his back to the trees and faced the group of ten, taking slow, small steps towards him.

“You are the one foretold,” said one of the women.

You must choose a side, came the thrumming thoughts in his skull.

Seth’s mind raced, wondering how in the hell he could survive if that grizzly bear attacked. He couldn’t, and he knew it. His only hope was to outrun it where the trees were thickest, but if he turned his back, the women could probably freeze him in place again. He angled back toward the path and took another step back. No, if they could do that again, they probably would have by now. He wondered if he’d put down the only one of them capable of that.

He’d have to chance it.

Seth turned on a dime, leg driving off as he sprinted into the woods, running in a straight line and hoping each time he passed through trees he was headed in the right direction. There was no time to find the paths, only run headlong down the many hills of the forest.

“Please have the fucking car running,” hissed Seth as branches whipped past his face. He dodged left and right among the trees, he could hear thunderous footfalls behind him. The bear roared and every single nerve in Seth’s body screamed in the ancient kind of fear once felt by our ancestors armed with only spears and sticks in the wilds of the world. It was close, too close, somehow winding through the trees just as efficiently as he could. Seth chanced a glance over his shoulder and saw the bear in a sort of horrific half-transformation, the glance too quick to tell what parts were human and what parts grizzly. Seth just kept running.

The woods began to thin and he could see headlights up ahead, but that man was right on his tail. Seth couldn’t risk another look back, he just had to send it.

Seth planted, right knee screaming in protest at the sudden reversal of momentum as he twisted on his foot and drove his augment heel into a vicious back kick, praying he timed it right.

He did.

The man, large, but mostly human at the moment, folded in half as Seth’s heel found its home just below his ribcage, an enormous growling grunt escaping the man’s lips. Seth blazed in, grabbing the man’s by his long silver hair, and swung like he was trying to toss a heavy sack into the back of a pickup. Skull rebounded off tree, not even getting three inches away before Seth drove up and through with his knee, finding purchase with a sickening crunch. The man slumped to the ground, unconscious, jaw fractured. But Seth didn’t stop. Still gripping hair, Seth threw the most vicious elbows he could, over and over, into the man’s face, bloodying it further with each strike as the void absorbed the violence and hungered for more.

Seth froze, elbow pulled back, blood splattered everywhere, and looked up. He could hear more coming. Seth bolted as the void laughed, satiated by the blood spilled that night.

The engine of Andrew’s car revved as Seth exited the tree line. He crossed to the passenger side in half a second and jumped in. “Fucking drive.”

Andrew J-turned the car, surging forward onto the dirt road as they made their escape from their childhood playground. The woods whipped by them at a speed no land animal could attain, as Andrew turned the wheel and careened onto the paved back road. They found the main road a few seconds later and Andrew slowed to somewhere within twenty miles of the speed limit. They both let out sighs of relief that turned into a nervous laughter, that turned into real laughter at the sheer thrill of their escape.

“What the hell?” Said Andrew. “The one foretold? What kind of bullshit did we stumble into there?”

“Dude, I don’t even know,” said Seth. “I guess that website we found is the real deal, then. We never found that carving though,” he chuckled.

Andrew laughed. “No, we just found shapeshifting bears and a real-life, American Horror Story-style coven of witches. No carving though, so no way it’s real, that website is bullshit.”

“Total bullshit.”

“Complete bullshit. Fake news.”

Seth stared out the window at the half-moon. “I need to make a call when we get back.” Their laughter faded.

Seth thought about the feel of the woman’s skull cracking around his augment like an overripe fruit. He thought about the spray of blood from the man’s face as he had driven strike after strike into him. Seth looked down at his hoodie. Probably ruined. He wiped his face and smelt his hand. It was heavy with a now-familiar metallic stench. He curled his fingers into a fist and covered it with his other hand. The demon inside him slept, content with its fill of violence for now.

Training at CFA had quieted it, but not quelled it. Did he now need to fight in life-and-death combat to satisfy the void inside him? The corners of Seth’s mouth turned down and his brow furrowed as the text he’d received that afternoon from either David or Anthony came to mind. Maybe he needed an outlet like that. Years of looking down on their events brought disgust to his thoughts, but if he needed blood to keep from losing his mind like he had on the football players, maybe he needed to go and fight there.

The idea unbalanced him, leaving his stomach unsettled and his mind torn. He couldn’t. He was selected for black tab, and doing awful, violent things like that wasn’t in line with the way he had been taught. It wasn’t who he was supposed to be. Good people didn’t engage in wanton violence. Deep down, he felt like maybe they shouldn’t even be capable of such carnage. Madeline had people saying behind his back he was a cheating bastard. Maybe he wasn’t that, but Seth began to feel that maybe he was something just as bad.

His thoughts continued to sink the whole ride back home.